do think I can get this better? look at link......

Hi guys -
I'm trying to get some 30sec spots small enough to put on the web. I'm using QT soreson3. This is about the best I can get it. File is about 7Mb (a bit smaller would be preferable but the quality drops dramatically)

I'm taking a guess that you aren't using the Sorenson Video 3 Professional encoder and are just using the standard version. The pro version costs extra, and can be purchased as just an encoder or bundled into Sorenson's Squeeze 4 app. It includes features such as two-pass encoding and true VBR support. Other options include using a two-pass MPEG-4 Part 2 Simple profile encoder like the one Popwire includes in Compression Master 3. Both codecs will offer about the same quality at the same bit rate. If you are only on a PC, I would recommend Squeeze. On a mac, I'd recommend CM3.

I encode a lot of video for PSP and Video iPod distribution. The frame size for these videos is 368x208, comparable to the frame size of the movie you linked to. At that resolution, I encode my videos at about the same bit rate as you have and they look fantastic (I also use HD sources).

The first flag that I see when I look at you encode is that you have not encoded the audio! If I extract the video track from your movie, I get a file about 2.1MB in size. Your audio is taking up 5MB of the movie! This should definitely be encoded to achieve a more downloadable-friendly file size. If you don't have many tools or codecs at your disposal, I would recommend either MP3 or IMA4:1 if you use SV3 or AAC if you use MPEG-4. Also, if you want to use QT7, there is an excellent multipass H.264 encoder in the Pro version. However, using H.264 forces your user to have QT7 installed, which is not certain, and in many cases not recommended.

I'm curious when you say for QT encoding you'd use Squeeze for the PC, do you mean QT Sorenson Video 3 encodes? From my tests Cleaner XL does better Sorenson QT video quality than Squeeze using the same bit rate.

It's a little surprising to read that (in answer to your question, yes, I was refering to SV3 encodes, not general QT encoding)... but I do remember PC Cleaner as being a good product back in the day. Any way, I didn't mention Cleaner because I have pretty much given up on the Cleaner series, as I find it rather insulting they are charging so much for a rather minor upgrade after all of this time (still no support for QT7 or DivX 6 on the PC!). Also, their customer support is terrible and the interface of XL just plain stinks IMHO.

I'd recommend Squeeze over Cleaner XL today because Squeeze comes with the Sorenson Video 3 Pro encoder (saves money if you don't have the pro encoder already) and has a much better interface than Cleaner. Although I will concede that the pre-processing features of Cleaner are probably much better, Sorenson has proven they are committed to continually enhancing development on the product. I used to believe that encoding to SV3 could be done better with apps besides Squeeze, but that was before the release of Squeeze 4.1, which pretty much fixed all of the SV3 issues.

Squeeze is optimized for multiple processors, but not all of the encoders it includes are. For instance, the encoders optimized for dual procs in Squeeze are the Sorenson Video 3 codec, their MPEG-2 encoder, their Real Video encoder, and the licensed Windows Media encoder. But the H.264, Spark codec, and On2VP6 encoders are not. On2 not being optimized is out of their hands, but the H.264 and Spark encoders should be. In any case, I wouldn't use Squeeze for H.264 encoding, but the lack of an SMP aware FLV encoder is disappointing.